Masooma Ranalvi -  A Stifling Silence

 

Good morning, everybody. 

 

Unison: [00:26:28] Good morning. 

 

I was born in the city of Mumbai, which was earlier known as Bombay. It is one of the most populous, and one of the most vibrant and modern cities of India. I was part of a very, very loving, warm, affectionate family. 

 

My grandmother used to come from her village to Bombay during the summer vacations. One summer, she'd come home and she said, “Let's take you for an outing.” I was very excited, because going out with grandmother, who was an extrovert, was good fun. You know, it meant I'd get chocolates and candies. So, my mother dressed me in my best dress and out I went with grandmother bouncing along with her. 

 

We went into this area where a large part of my community stays. It's like area where we stay. And she took me into this dark, falling apart, decrepit building. We entered the building, we climbed up the first floor and she knocked at a door. I'm wondering where we are going. This is going to be a fun outing, but where are we? An old lady opens the door and gets into the room. And in our community, we sit down. So, we remove the shoes out and there are rugs and carpets on the floor. 

 

We go inside the inner room, a curtain is drawn, and we sit down on the floor. And then, grandmother asks me to lie down. I don't know what's happening at that point in time. I'm very, very scared. She gently nudges me, pushes me down on the carpet. I lie down, she's holding me, she's actually pinning me down, holding my shoulders and my hands and the other lady at the other end is holding my legs. She removes my panty. And it's all happened very quickly, I've started to cry, I'm sobbing. 

 

And this woman, she takes some instrument, whether it's a blade or a knife, and she cuts a part of me from down there. I don't know what it is, but it's a sharp, piercing pain. I even do not have it in me to shout or to scream, but I'm sobbing and I'm crying. Everything else is a blur. I only know from that point I somehow get home. And the first thing I do when I get home is just hug my mom and I cry, and I cry. I'm angry why did my mother send me out with my grandmother. I'm crying and my mother holds me tight and she says, “It's going to be okay.” I don't know anything about what has happened to me. 

 

The memory of that day has been locked in a box. All the trauma, all this, whatever I went through, and it's been kept away. I have never, ever revisited that. I have never told anybody about that. Till 40 years have passed. It's 2015 now. I have a 20-year-old daughter. I have not cut her. I have shielded her. 

 

She's studying design in Bangalore, which is another city in India. She has come for vacations. And there is a spate of articles in the newspaper about this practice in our community. She has read about it. She doesn't know much about it and she doesn't know that her cousins and her peers also have been subject to it, because she hasn't been, nor have I ever talked to her about it. I want to tell her about this. I have never spoken to anybody about it. I'm extremely awkward about it. 

 

One afternoon I sit her down and start the conversation. She senses where it's going and she also doesn't want to hear it, so she's also feeling very squeamish about it. And I start, “When I was seven,” and she says, “Mom, no, I don't want to hear it.” And it's her squeamishness in hearing my story and my awkwardness in telling her the story. It was like it came together. The moment passed, and then she asked me a question, “Why do we still do it?” It was a general question. It was a question directed to the community as such. But it pierced me like an arrow. 

 

At that moment, I felt ashamed. I felt inadequate and I felt complicit in my silence. I felt that I was perpetuating a dark, dirty secret by my silence. And it was at that moment, in my heart, I knew that I had to speak out and I had to break the silence. And that's what I wanted to do. But the biggest block or the biggest hurdle before me was my ignorance. I didn't know anything about this. I did not even know the word, clitoris. I really did not. Leave alone know what the clitoris does and anything about it. So, my journey into learning about this started. 

 

And then one day I sat, I opened my laptop, I opened a page and I started writing. I wrote about all those suppressed, repressed emotions, trauma feelings, all that anger, pent up frustrations, put it down in a blog. I eventually got that blog published. And that was the beginning of my journey into activism. And today, I'm here to say that I am very happy that I spoke out. Thank you.